Unveiled: 52 Weekly Devotions for Encountering God

Unveiled

52 Weekly Devotions for

Encountering God

Bert Lewis

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are

being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to

another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit

2 Corinthians 3:18

Copyright © 2013 Bert Lewis.

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Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-4497-9332-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-9333-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-9331-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013907499

WestBow Press rev. date: 05/22/2013

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Preface

Week 1    Unveiled

Week 2    Does Your Past Predict Your Future?

Week 3    Does Our View of God Define Him?

Week 4    But of God

Week 5    No Other Way

Week 6    Where Theology and Experience Meet

Week 7    Perfect Peace

Week 8    Guarding the Good Deposit

Week 9    God Knows

Week 10  Blessed through Suffering

Week 11  The Greater Vision of the LORD

Week 12  Well Built?

Week 13  His Strength

Week 14  Shame

Week 15  Just Like Judas

Week 16  Through Many Tribulations

Week 17  Shelter from the Storm

Week 18  We Can’t; He Can

Week 19  Maturity

Week 20  My Shepherd

Week 21  The Priority Relationship

Week 22  Just Do It

Week 23  The Perfect Builder

Week 24  Polluted Offerings

Week 25  Turning the Other Cheek

Week 26  Weightless

Week 27  Are You a Hindrance to the Lord?

Week 28  The Lie about Grace and Sin

Week 29  Marks of a Faithful Teacher

Week 30  Character, Prayer, and the Power of God

Week 31  A Clean Vessel

Week 32  Who Is like You?

Week 33  Seek and Find

Week 34  Am I a Pleasing Aroma?

Week 35  I Believe, But …

Week 36  Who Have I Sinned Against?

Week 37  God Knew Me When

Week 38  Jesus’ Death Ordained by God! How Can It Be?

Week 39  Discipleship Lived Out

Week 40  Training Them to Go

Week 41  Denying the Savior

Week 42  Jesus Restores

Week 43  The Lie about Grace and Knowledge

Week 44  Sola Fide (by Faith Alone)

Week 45  Close Enough to Hear

Week 46  Always Listening

Week 47  One Way to Battle Sin

Week 48  A Tough Test Given by a Faithful God

Week 49  What If There Was no Resurrection?

Week 50  Calamity in His Will

Week 51  It’s Not Who I am, It Is I AM

Week 52  Reflecting on a Faithful God

Acknowledgments

To Karen, Kristin, and Logan: thank you for letting me share this with you and for allowing me to ask over and over, Does this sound okay? Thanks for helping me find the right words. I love you more than you know! To my friends and family who have allowed me to share portions of Unveiled with you, thank you for your encouragement, prayers, and suggestions along the way. To Hunter Street Baptist Church for teaching sound biblical doctrine for which there is no substitute. I know there are many wonderful churches, but I thank God for mine because it’s the one where He has chosen to love, teach, and encourage me. Mostly, I thank God for giving His Son, Jesus Christ, for me, a sinner. Thank you, God, for your saving grace and your continuing daily grace! Help me live a life worthy of that grace.

Foreword

I am convinced no one can grow and develop into a mature follower of Christ without a consistent and thoughtful time of private devotions. That is why I am delighted to recommend this volume and its unique approach to assisting the believer in encountering God through His Word each day.

Let me say a word about Bert Lewis. It has been my joy to be both Bert’s friend and pastor since 2003. He is a loving husband and father, a successful businessman, a faithful Bible teacher, and a man after God’s own heart. He knows God and has learned to meet face to face and heart to heart with his heavenly Father. As Bert has done this, he has become more and more like Christ.

He has written this devotional to assist believers to regularly behold and contemplate the glory of Christ so they may be transformed into His image. When we behold Christ—when we fix our attention, the eyes of our faith on Him—we are transformed. According to Romans 8:29, this is the purpose for which God chose us in the beginning: For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. It is toward this purpose that God works everything together.

So, how do we behold Him? Well, [the way] we behold anything we can’t see with our eyes. How do you focus on knowing your husband or wife (which you could do even if you were blind)? How do you focus on goals and plans for your business? How do you focus on anything you care about? You give attention to it. You seek to know all you can about it. You spend time on it. You concentrate and think and mull it over in your mind in between everything else.

And the same is true of beholding the glory of Christ Jesus. It takes time and attention. It demands that we put other things aside. Specifically, James says we look in the mirror of His Word.

I believe Unveiled is a wonderful tool that the Spirit of God will use to help you to focus your mind’s attention and your heart’s affection on Christ so you will treasure Him above all things. And as that happens, there will be genuine transformation of your life from the inside out.

Soli Deo Gloria (Glory to God alone),

Buddy

Buddy Gray, Pastor

Hunter Street Baptist Church

Preface

The Purpose of Unveiled

We search for answers in many different ways, using many different resources. It is human nature to want to know the answer to life’s most important questions. Unfortunately, we are at times misled as to where those answers can be found. Too often we look to the world for an answer, and the world may give us one, but rarely is it the correct one. The answers to life’s most important questions are found in the Scriptures. We just have to make the decision to diligently search for God’s will in the Scriptures and then listen, as His answers are always right. There is a stark contrast between God and man, and a primary purpose of Unveiled is to show us that difference. To understand how great and loving God is we first need to understand who we are before Him. We are sinners saved by grace, designed and created by God to bring Him glory. I hope this becomes apparent as you encounter these pages. I hope you see Jesus Christ magnified.

The inspiration for these passages came from a variety of situations. It could have been through personal Bible reading, study in preparation for a Sunday school lesson, or a passage or point referenced in a sermon preached. At other times, it was hearing a prayer, remembering a testimony, and even family circumstances or personal experiences that caused me to recall or search out a particular verse of Scripture. Ultimately, though, the Holy Spirit was the catalyst for these verses. Over a period of time, the Lord put these fifty-two verses on my heart; first for the verse to change me and then for me to share them with you.

Why a Weekly Devotional and Suggestions for Its Use

Sometimes when we eat, we prefer a small taste before really digging in, and that’s okay. In Unveiled, there are fifty-two devotions for your reading that will stir your heart and mind, and passages of Scripture have been provided for subsequent study throughout the week. The best use of this devotional is as a way to stimulate you to go to God’s Word, as it is His Word that changes hearts.

May I suggest how to use this devotional? Read the devotion early in the week, and then study the accompanying passages. You will find that the amount of reading varies each week. What’s important is not the amount you read but that you reflect and pray about what you have read. In each week’s devotion, you will always find suggested reading to be the section of Scripture surrounding that week’s key passage. This is so the passage will be understood in its appropriate context, an extremely important issue related to the study and application of God’s Word. The other suggested Scripture readings vary but relate also to the key passage or theme of the devotion for that particular week. Refer back to the devotion as often as you desire. Throughout the week, ask yourself a few questions as it relates to your study: first, what biblical truth is God impressing upon my heart? Second, what am I learning about the character of God? Third, how might God desire to change me?

Spiritual growth occurs day by day as we encounter God. If you already have a pattern of daily Scripture reading, let Unveiled be a supplement. If you don’t, let this devotional be an inspiration to begin one. Through it all, my hope and prayer is that as you proceed through Unveiled, the Holy Spirit will be at work in your life, giving you the desire to taste more and more of God. After all, what better nourishment than the spiritual nourishment that comes from God’s Word? Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good (Psalm 34:8).

Week 1

Unveiled

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is Spirit.

—2 Corinthians 3:18

Moses entered the presence of God without wearing a veil, but when he returned to the people of Israel, he veiled himself. One reason Moses wore a veil in the presence of the Israelites was because God’s glory shined so brightly from his face that it frightened them. Paul explains in 2 Corinthians that the veil was also worn to indicate the fading glory of the old covenant, the Mosaic system. Under the old covenant, repeated sacrifices had to be made to atone for the people’s sins. Paul knew the old covenant was ineffective in changing people’s hearts and instead emphasized that freedom to obey the law came